Vehicle Quota System: Why not in India?

This is a discussion on Vehicle Quota System: Why not in India? within The Indian Car Scene, part of the BHP India category; Originally Posted by rav11stars
I've heard from one of my friends that in Singapore anyone cannot buy a car there. ...

I've heard from one of my friends that in Singapore anyone cannot buy a car there. I got interested and searched.

Wary of the fact that uncontrolled growth in the number of vehicles will result in traffic jams in land and road scarce Singapore, the government has implemented a range of measures to manage car ownership and usage. These include the Certificate of Entitlement (COE), Vehicle Quota System (VQS), road taxes and Electronic Road Pricing (ERP). All motor vehicles must be registered with the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

So coming to the actual question : why can't we have a similar vehicle quota in India? The usual answer would be poor public transport, SGP is a smaller nation when compared to India, Govt loses revenue.

But if we think the other way round : the Govt, instead of spending huge amounts in expanding roads and infrastructure, why can't the funds be channeled into developing a public infrastructure so huge and practical that we'd be impressed and love using it.
I'd say the Govt should see public trans as a revenue-generating measure too. if the private operators can reap in profits so can the Govt.

Enforcing such a quota will discourage anyone with the cash to just go a buy a n automobile just because they can.

These two should go hand-in-hand so people should see the benefit(read feel proud) of using public transport. What say?

rav11stars this is a great thread.

First of all we should filter very strictly on the basis of driving skill. there are monkies on the the road.

Jokes apart, this would be an excellent decision. Bombay is increasingly becoming a gridlock. So much so that people have in some areas gone back to their two-wheeler just to beat the traffic. In their minds there is no danger as the cars simply do not move for any of those to hit their two-wheeler.
Pollution and asthma another big reason why this is imperative.

Also I feel there are dud cars in the market which people buy simply because of the price offer only to feel a bot duped later. Competition will be based on engineering improvements and ultimately help the consumer. :-)

1. It is a complete urban area which implies high [ extremely, in this case] traffic density.

2. It is an island brought into use by land reclamation due to the fact that Singapore suffers from 'land starvation'

3. Rule abiding citizens as well as benevolent political officers are such a rare species in our country that any system would be transformed into cash-extracting phenomena which is due to high levels of Social illiteracy [ we are a bunch of literates not educated and thus 70% literacy does not tantamount 70 Cr disciplined citizens] which is almost in contrary to the Singapore situation -where people are disciplined

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashishmathur14

Vehicle Quota can never be implemented in a country like India and rather should also be not talked about specially in comparison to a country like Singapore.
Before putting any restrictive laws which directly impacts common man, there should be good alternatives available , else it will always result in corruption.

I'm neither batting for this system in India nor am I against it. I've put this point forward as a thread to get to know different views and they're interesting. One of them was that it's not suitable for India given the vastness of our country. Just for argument's sake aren't many of our states more or less the same size as Singapore? Moreover we do not have a central RTO system for the whole country and so this can be implemented state-wise.
But as I've already mentioned this should be applicable to urban areas where most of the funds are splurged in building and expanding roads to accommodate the burgeoning population's vehicles. If an excellent public transport system is provided in urban areas, people will themselves stop using their vehicles which in turn eases the pressure on infrastructure and contributes to a better environment.
Who'd want to drive to work in b2b traffic risking a scratch or a dent on our beloved automobiles if we have an alternative and more comfortable option?

The funds thus saved can be used to improve the infrastructure over the entire country so we can enjoy the thrill of driving between cities instead of lamenting about the traffic within the cities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Car-go-man

This to me is the biggest hurdle for having a better infrastructure.

Take Bangalore for instance. The city just keeps growing everyday and the corresponding infrastructure hasn't been able to catch up with the pace at which the city is growing and it may never probably catch up with it if it goes on like this.

We need more urban cities per state instead of one major city that gets overcrowded and unmanageable. It is highly impossible to cater to the citizens' needs if this is not done.

back in 2011 when I was in Bangalore I was impressed with the way feeder buses were provided to the Metro stations from nearby localities and the way it was planned within the city. Later I've read that it's a failure as they didn't learn from the success story of the Delhi Metro and so ran into legal issues at many places.

I really don't know why do we have to follow some system adopted by a country which is only so slightly larger than say Pune. If you just see the geographical measures, India is so large that we don't need to have these quota thing to mend anything.

Think about it. In terms of area, world's one of the most advanced motoring country, Germany, is only slightly larger than Madhya Pradesh and almost equal to Rajasthan. UK is only equal to Tamil Nadu. So if they don't need to put in a similar system to make good of their spaces, why do we? Just because a system has been adopted by country to make its own good doesn't necessarily mean we will have to follow it blindly.

We have a huge population, yes, but what percentage of that population is capable of owning a two wheeler let alone four wheeler I doubt. Instead what we can do, infact our government should do is improve the road infrastructure to a level atleast close to some european countries to ease the pressure of traffic and congestion. We already have a very high rate of taxation on fuel and manufacturing charges. How much money do you think our government should loot from us.

Public transport is a different story. Everyone here will agree that we need to have better public transportation system and if people decide to use public transport instead of owning personal mobility, it's for them to decide. I hate it when government try to push something to the masses. We are a free country and the citizens should have their own choices to make.

In the end I think if adopted, this system will fail miserably in our country. And we, bhpians, should not encourage this to happen here.

I think we should allow free sale of vehicles but tax the hell out of individually driven vehicles - think of roads as an asset. Make buses next to free (or cheap) and nice, then make car usage in busy roads (not ownership) costly, and downright expensive for those driving solo.

A single person in a SUV requires so much space compared to four in a hatchback or hundreds in a metro coach. There should be incentives to use the common roads with the least footprint possible.

You cannot replace private vehicles unless there is a viable alternative. Our public transport infrastructure is hopelessly. Is there an alternative for a safe, clean, fast, affordable and comfortable mode of transport apart from cars ?

Bikers have to face huge pollution levels and are at risk of being knocked off. You need to travel in buses, metros and local trains while standing and at a high risk of being robbed or picking up a disease from someone nearby or soiling your garments. Taxis and autorickshaws continue to be expensive and many of them are poorly maintained. Autorickshaws moreover don't go by the meter anywhere except in Mumbai and have tiny legroom and are really slow.

Bangalore tried its bit to "fix things" by introducing Volvo buses for the office going crowd. These are more expensive than bikes on long distances and more expensive than cars on shorter distances (or cars with atleast one passenger on long distances). People still need to travel standing in Volvos and security continues to be poor against thieves. The buses are full of mosquitoes and the seats are often very dirty. In the end the buses still take a long time to reach their destinations.

The day security agencies feel safe enough to send the prime minister, the president and various VVIPs via the country's next generation public transport system without a security detail would be the day I agree to travel by it.

Until then, the solution is not some unintelligent morons trying to cook up new rules for harassing people but working around the problem and avoiding travelling altogether. My solution is simple: work from home. We've certainly crossed the age when this was considered not feasible. Most jobs that don't involve working with machines and physical equipment (this includes almost all consulting/MBA type jobs, the services industry (banking, insurance, etc) and software engineering) can be done from home and people can interact remotely. Technology easily enables this.

I've heard from one of my friends that in Singapore anyone cannot buy a car there. I got interested and searched.

Wary of the fact that uncontrolled growth in the number of vehicles will result in traffic jams in land and road scarce Singapore, the government has implemented a range of measures to manage car ownership and usage. These include the Certificate of Entitlement (COE), Vehicle Quota System (VQS), road taxes and Electronic Road Pricing (ERP). All motor vehicles must be registered with the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

So coming to the actual question : why can't we have a similar vehicle quota in India? The usual answer would be poor public transport, SGP is a smaller nation when compared to India, Govt loses revenue.

But if we think the other way round : the Govt, instead of spending huge amounts in expanding roads and infrastructure, why can't the funds be channeled into developing a public infrastructure so huge and practical that we'd be impressed and love using it.
I'd say the Govt should see public trans as a revenue-generating measure too. if the private operators can reap in profits so can the Govt.

Enforcing such a quota will discourage anyone with the cash to just go a buy a n automobile just because they can.

These two should go hand-in-hand so people should see the benefit(read feel proud) of using public transport. What say?

This would be a nice system in India. Will change the position of India in global economy w.r.t. balance of payment and Rupee purchasing power would increase. But the biggest hurdle for implementing this system is the quality and network of public transport system which will have to be as good and affordable as Singapore.

We should as a nation learn from our socialist mistakes, which delayed our growth by a good 40-50 years. Please, the quota system is our biggest evil and a roadblock in progress. We have fine tuned the art of giving quota for this and that, and ensured that some government babu or minister becomes our all mighty lord, bestowing gifts by accepting our offerings.
If we need to control something,we need to control our population, which is galloping beyond measure.
Quotas for vehicle ownership is not the solution, we need to fix the root cause of this increasing vehicle population, which is fix our public transport system. Staggered work timing, staggered office off days and work from home should also be encouraged. Also our city growth needs to be well planned, to prevent the Mumbai like north -south morning/evening commute and rush hour.
The worst thing to do as some members have suggested is to jump the populist bandwagon and try to tax large car/SUV owners, basically amounting to saying, because you are rich enough to afford a large car, I will extort money from you.

We should as a nation learn from our socialist mistakes, which delayed our growth by a good 40-50 years. Please, the quota system is our biggest evil and a roadblock in progress. We have fine tuned the art of giving quota for this and that, and ensured that some government babu or minister becomes our all mighty lord, bestowing gifts by accepting our offerings.
If we need to control something,we need to control our population, which is galloping beyond measure.
Quotas for vehicle ownership is not the solution, we need to fix the root cause of this increasing vehicle population, which is fix our public transport system. Staggered work timing, staggered office off days and work from home should also be encouraged. Also our city growth needs to be well planned, to prevent the Mumbai like north -south morning/evening commute and rush hour.
The worst thing to do as some members have suggested is to jump the populist bandwagon and try to tax large car/SUV owners, basically amounting to saying, because you are rich enough to afford a large car, I will extort money from you.

Where your point is a valid one, I think India is changing with enough openness in government functioning given the big push to bring processes online. Of course there will always be ways to navigate the system (if you can pardon the pun) but e-officialdom will perhaps make it a lesser evil :-)

Enforcing such a quota will discourage anyone with the cash to just go a buy a n automobile just because they can.

These two should go hand-in-hand so people should see the benefit(read feel proud) of using public transport. What say?

I've been to SG, and talked to people about this system. SG is trying to reduce the cars even further. Due to the high taxes, cars are only for rich (and cabs, I guess they might be getting some subsidy?). So if we have such a system, only super rich can ever think of having a car. Further, it would start off another cartel of middle-men, and related 'businesses'.

The quota system would work in SG, because it has a fantastic public transport in place, and we can reach almost 80% of SG with public transport. I never felt the need for a car. Also, they are adding more and more areas under the Mass Rapid Transport/Light Rapid Transport, and every place is connected by comfortable buses. Add to that the convenience of ezLink cards to pay for any mode of transport. The last mile connectivity if one needs to use a bus after travelling in MRT is extremely cheap at about 5-10 cents or so!

Add to that comfortable foot paths and cycle paths. Some of the footpaths are with top shelter (great help when it rains).

So, till we have a reliable, comfortable public transport, we have no option but to have private transport!

Just provide good public transport in all major cities, car usage will automatically come down. Why is it that no of vehicles per head in cities like Kolkatta or Mumbai is far lower than those like Pune or Bangalore. It is just that a good transport system exists.

In my opinion too, a quota system in a country as huge as India will face several practical challenges in implementation and breed corruption. Also before forcing citizens to adopt public transportation system it is important to ensure that the system allows people to travel in a dignified manner. I cant imagine going to an important meeting travelling in the Delhi metro (or Mubai local) during peak summer months without being drowned in other people's smelly sweat.
I have been debating in my mind for long the following scenario- Let us raise the delhi metro fares substantially. Assuming an average commute of 800-1000km in a month, petrol bill for a small car would be in the range of Rs 3000-4000 per month. Let us keep the monthly pass cost at Rs 2500. This will drive away a lot of crowd from the metro and therefore make the journey by metro more comfortable. Because the metro journey is now comfortable, a lot of the small car owners, some expensive bike owners and maybe some C segment car owners will switch to metro (I also advocate a simultaneous increase in parking cost to enforce such a switch). Since a huge number of cars (assuming A and B segment cars comprise 60%-70% of the car population) will now be off the roads, the movement of buses will become easier and quicker. with the higher metro fares and higher parking fees, the government can work towards increasing the number of buses on the road to take care of the population that has shifted from metro to buses. Because the number of vehicles (excluding 2 wheelers) on the road has decreased, managing traffic would be easier now and therefore some of the traffic police force can be easily set aside to monitor auto rickshaws and taxis and esuring that they dont refuse fare and go by meter.
I realise that the introduction of such steps will expose the government to charges of being anti-poor, but lets be realistic here- a person who is ready to spend Rs 4000 per month on fuel (apart from blocking Rs 3-7 lakhs in capital expense for the car) needs a comfortable and dignified means of transport. He does not want to be standing on one foot smelling someone else's armpits while going to office.

Just provide good public transport in all major cities, car usage will automatically come down. Why is it that no of vehicles per head in cities like Kolkatta or Mumbai is far lower than those like Pune or Bangalore. It is just that a good transport system exists.

Rahul

where Yes I agree that public transport is a good way to go, there is also a surge in buying cars because every family wants one. And if a car is parked outside the house it is going to be driven t some point. Therein lies the problem :-)